Practice with Copic and Acrylics [TUTORIAL]

Last night I decided to paint a self portrait using my sketch markers as a sort of underpainting for the acrylic paint layers on top. Working on smooth bristol for this technique is a good idea because it accepts markers well without absorbing too much ink, dulling out the color or being too rough on the marker tips, and it also accepts acrylic without curling too much, unless you're really getting thick with your paint! I really enjoy this technique because I can use light pencil or my light skin tones to draw a really loose "skeleton" for the image without worrying about keeping inside the lines or messing up with the inks because I can always fix mistakes or change things later on. For example, after I finished the initial sketch (below), I realized that I had drawn the forehead too short and the right eye was too high, but it wasn't until after working the image a bit that I came to this conclusion.

In retrospect, there are a lot of things about the original sketch that I really like that I feel like I may have lost in the 'finished' painting above. For example, I really like the contrast in the planes of the face that is in the sketch that became much softer once the paint came out, and I like the jagged angular-ness that the drawing holds, but that short forehead hurts me a little, it's like I gave myself a sharp forward hairdo!